The app was officially launched in the Apple App Store within a couple of months
It was now looking like the app was being valued at $500 million
Instagram’s very first filter. He and Nicole started using the filter and posted the first Instagram photo – a little Mexican dog lying next to Nicole’s foot. They knew they had the beginnings of something great once the filters were in place, receiving further confidence once they had shown the app to Jack Dorsey, who was glowing in his praise. Funding Instagram launched on . On its first day, it garnered around 25,000 users. Within a few months, in , fuelled by their strong growth, Systrom and Krieger were looking at $7 million investment from Benchmark, a prominent venturecapital firm, valuing the app at $25 million. A number of other investors contributed to the round, most notably Jack Dorsey, angel investor Chris Sacca and Adam D’Angelo, who joined Facebook in its early days (he was good friends with Zuckerberg, who had been his roommate in high school) and went on to start a company called Quora. Systrom and Krieger continued to execute and focus – they were laserfocused on a single platform, the iPhone, and doing a single thing, sharing photos – really well. This tunnel vision translated into very impressive ‘stickiness’ for the app. Not only were they able to attract new downloads and new users at a phenomenal rate, but those people were sticking around. Read More